Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!

Notices

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.

You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!

Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.

If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.

Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.

Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I am having a bit of trouble using make and emerge on Gentoo. I fixed most of the trouble by fixing my errors in make.conf. I would post links on what I found, but I don't have more than 5 posts here yet, as I'm a newb [hate that word]. Anyway, can someone help me figure out why I can't emerge python?

I'm still building the system from the Gentoo LiveCD, using Stage1. I've gotten it running once or twice, but I keep doing it over to learn more and make a faster "build".

I keep getting a "!!! make all failed" error. Though the error also tells me not to post this error, I don't know how to go up the screen to get to the actual "topmost build error".

I cannot emerge python, vixie-cron or openssl. I can't figure out what I've done wrong.

The error from openssl I have in front of me is: "!!! Function src_compile, Line 166, Exitcode 2"

use shift+PageUp to scroll up a console screen... as you thought we can't say much without knowing what the real error is, that openssl error is simply the portage build script acknowledging an error within the build it's controlling.

Personally, I like to get my systems up and running as quickly as possible, then start the learning stuff.

Having never done a Stage 1, I couldn't say.

However, it's often better to use portage than mess with manual compilation etc untill you have some knowledge of how things are working.

So, maybe you should just try to emerge python.

Have you actually got the system installed yet? because I'd suggest that you'd get problems if you haven't completed the install.

The error you posted shows nothing. Google didn't like it at all i.e. did you mean "c_lib.c:24 etc etc"? instead of the c_zlib error that you posted? Either way, it didn't throw up any suggestions.

If you're still "in" the live CD then you probably can't emerge python anyway - AFAIK (which could easily be wrong) you need to have installed the base system and whatever portage snapshot you intend too use before emerge will get anything for you.

'Cos once you've got the base system in, one of the first things you'll find, is that the 2.6.11-gentoor3 that you've quoted as your distro, is "out of date" for the main version of the kernel - thats currently at 2.6.13-gentoo-r3

Hence, I'd suggest that you did a Stage 3 + GRP to get "it" up and running graphically. Irrespective, if you did that, you should be able to get it up and running in less than 2 hours. Then make the changes to the USE flags, and then do the updates/upgrades with emerge -upD --newuse world (sorry, can't remember if the abbreviated switch for newuse is N or n). It's still gonna take quite some hours to get the upgrades/updates/rebuilds so that they make use of any changed/modified USE flags.

Oh, and while theres lots of people here who may be able to assist better than I can, I'd suggest that you have a very good look at the gentoo forums as well.

Yeah, I guess I chose the hard way to learn but I have gotten a Gentoo Stage 3 running, but I decided to tear it apart to rebuild it. I ended up emerging zlib to fix the python emerge problem, last night at like 2 am Can't help myself

Anway, I was then able to emerge python, but when I finalized everything and tried to boot, I got a message that said something like "mount: command not found". Some digging on google reaped the solution that I had yet to emerge system.

I could swear that I've run "emerge --sync, emerge --emptytree system, and emerge portage" but I guess I might have miss the system one. This is 3rd or 4th time I've built this thing

I've got the system booted now, but I don't have any network cards recognized. I think I might need to emerge coldplug, so once again I'm booting the LiveCD to try and get the other apps I need.

Thanks for the tip about configuring a new kernel from a working kernel. I'm assuming that you would just do another entry in lilo or grub conf?

As I say, if you already have some idea about how stuff works (and are prepared to read absolutely mountains of stuff) then in truth, if you stick to the instructions in the install handbook it's usually pretty straight forward.

My favourite balls up used to be when copying the portage stuff, I'd forget the last switch and that meant that the little swine wouldn't read from the packages disc - which is how I found out that to do a proper emerge for KDE takes in the region of 15 hours for my system.

Ha! never again.

Even though updating/upgrading, after moding the USE flags so I include everything I might want to use/try, and then doing the "emerge -upND world" (ha! I looked up that the newuse abbreviated switch is N) the upgrades/updates/rebuilds take about 12 or so hours - I don't care as I just do that in the background and just carry on meddling with stuff.

I'm not obsessed enough to want to bother trying a stage 1 install (yet). Plus as my hardware is pretty standard it's not much hassle doing the stage 3 with the GRP packages. So I just make sure that I get the "biggies" from the packages disc i.e. KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice, the multi-media stuff etc and then just emerge everything else in the normal way.

My linux knowledge is really "diddly squat", but thats enough for me to use gentoo - which I vastly prefer to Mandriva, SuSE and a few others that I've tried. It has the bonus of being pretty up to date.

Good luck.

regards

John

p.s. Oh and yes, it's often better to emerge the coldplug stuff - I also seem to recall that I found it easier to configure networking during install at chapter 3 (of the 2005.1 manual) - it saves having to dig around to correct it later - but you may find different. I don't know if your lack of recognition of the network card is gonna be a hassle, I'm lucky inasfaras mine uses the natsemi driver.